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Inspired by Yacef Saadi’s account of his experiences
as an F.L.N (Front de Libération Nationale) military commander, Gillo Pontecorvo’s seminal 1966
work The Battle of Algiers dramatises Algeria’s struggle for
independence between 1956 and 1957, during which the nationalist movement
shifted its focus from rural Kabylia and the Aurès mountains to the
capital, Algiers.

As
the film illustrates, this renewed emphasis upon guerrilla warfare attracted both
the attention of the international community and witnessed the increasing
participation of women within the conflict, as female nationalists (known as mujahida)were tasked with carrying information and weapons through the
besieged city.

Traditionally, film scholars have tended to regard Pontecorvo’s
representation of gendered nationalism in positive terms, as the dramatization
of a post-colonial national identity predicated upon sexual equality and egalitarian
values. Nevertheless, as this article will illustrate, this hypothesis
is somewhat problematized by the cinematographic patterns inherent within the
film (lighting, framing and camera movement), which instead reveal an
underlying subtext of gendered mutual exclusivity and sexual difference.

In
the Battle of Algiers, decisions
regarding the cinematography of the film were decided by Marcello Gatti, who used telephoto
lenses, fluid/unstable handheld cameras, and high levels of graininess/contrast to deliberately mimic the aesthetics of
newsreel/television footage. Pontecorvo also used ‘contratype’ that is, a
negative reel made from a positive reel to enhance the amateur look of the
narrative, whilst the disclaimer ‘not even one foot of newsreel or documentary
film is included in this picture’ seems to invite the audience to view the film
in terms of ‘documentary realism,’ emphasising the relationship between image
and reality, sign and referent.

These techniques are particularly evident when Pontecorvo
focuses on the two masculine ‘heroes’ of the film, Ali
La Pointe (the leader of the insurrection played by Brahim Haggiag) and Si
Djefar (the orchestrator of the bombings played by Yacef Saadi). In particular, both protagonists are
frequently depicted using harsh, high contrast lighting - a technique known as
chiaroscuro (or the ‘Rembrandt effect’), often used within western, narrative
cinema to suggest psychological depth, the unconscious mind and subjectivity. Furthermore, in depicting these
‘heroes’ of the revolution, Pontecorvo often uses framing techniques inherited
from 1920s Soviet social realism(popularized
by directors including Sergei Eisenstein) and 1950s Italian neo-realism (associated
with directors including Federico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini), both of
which privilege exterior locations in and a focus upon ‘the people’ as opposed to
the individual characteristic of classical Hollywood narratives. In The Battle of Algiers it is the winding
topography of the Casbah and the neo-classical boulevards of the European quarter
that form the main locus of narrative action. Nevertheless, in its framing
techniques, Pontecorvo’s film arguably defines the ‘people’ in fundamentally masculine
terms; as a Revolution comprised of male ‘heroes’ and martyrs (see figure 1).

Figure 1

On
the other hand, one scene in Pontecorvo’s film appears atypical in its cinematographic
patterns. Set
initially within an interior, domestic space filled with mirrors, the scene in
question depicts three Algerian women disguising themselves as Europeansettlers in order to carry explosives
over the restrictions placed on the war-torn city. As with the famous female
resistance fighters Zohra Drif, Samia Lakdari and Djamila Bouhired, in an act of revolutionary masquerade,
they manipulate the fixed, binary logic of colonialism through shifts in
appearance, from veiled (haik) to a comparatively ‘Westernised’ form of dress.

Depicting
Algerian women as active agents in the conflict, it is this scene which has led
many theorists to view the film positively in terms of its gendered
representation. Nevertheless, this is the only point at which the spectator is
allowed any access to the female revolutionaries involved in the struggle; for
the remainder of the film, female participants remain either silent within the
narrative or part of the anonymous masses. Furthermore, this scene enacts a crucial
stylistic shift from the neo-realism of the (masculine orientated) crowd scenes
to a more conventional form of cinematography, drawing rather from the
conventions of classical Hollywood cinema and its representation of female stars
such as Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo.

One
way in which this shift takes place is through patterns of lighting, from the naturalistic
techniques that deliberately mimicked the ‘gritty’ aesthetics of
newsreel/television footage, to
three point lighting (comprised of a key, fill and back-light) a technique traditionally
used by Hollywood directors to reduce the illusion of depth demanded by the
narrative, giving flatness, the quality of a cut-out or icon rather than
verisimilitude to the screen.
Furthermore, a particular emphasis upon soft, frontal lighting, is apparent
here, bathing the faces of the mujahida
in a quasi-translucent glow that - at certain points - threatens to disrupt the
fragile illusion of realism insofar as it is constructed by the narrative.

Indeed,
Ranjana Khanna describes the bombing sequence as ‘contrasting starkly with the
high neo-realism of the crowd scenes’- an observation which casts doubt on the
film as representing gendered nationalism in equal and objective terms. Furthermore,
framing techniques used here are also reminiscent of classical Hollywood
conventions, visualising a shift from exterior locations and ‘the people’
(framed with wide shots) to a singular focus upon the individual (using medium
and close-up shots). Whilst ostensibly representing female mujahida actively participating in the struggle, this shift in
framing techniques thus simultaneously appears to remove the women from the Revolution
(a tension expressed between the content of the film and the ways in which this
content is articulated through film language).

In
other words, whilst men are symbolically associated with the streets and ‘the
people’, (through cinematographic patterns appropriated from Soviet social
realism and Italian neo-realism), through patterns of framing (characteristic
of classic realist Hollywood cinema), women’s role within the conflict is
posited as singular, atypical and ultimately contingent upon on the male
‘heroes’ of the uprising (figure 2).

Figure 2

Despite
its iconic status in the canon of films depicting the Algerian War, TheBattle
of Algiers is nonetheless problematic in terms of its representation of
gendered nationalism.

In
particular, as this article has shown, through cinematographic shifts in
lighting and framing, Pontecorvo arguably associates the male heroes of the
Revolution with subjectivity and ‘the people’, whilst the mudjahida emerge rather as warped Hollywood stars, stripped of their
agency through an obsessive and singular emphasis upon their physical
appearances. In this way, whist the
film ostensibly represents the struggle in objective terms, cinematographic
patterns inherent within the film nonetheless reveal an underlying subtext of
gendered mutual exclusivity and sexual difference.